How to tame a freeway - put a park on top

Over the last decade or two, cities have begun to reclaim their urban neighborhoods from freeways. Boston buried its Central Artery in the Big Dig. San Francisco tore down the earthquake-damaged Embarcadero Freeway and replaced it with a more hospitable boulevard. And now there is an emerging plan in LA to build a platform of sorts over a significant stretch of the Hollywood Freeway and cover it with landscaping, creating a neighborhood-serving park in this notoriously nature-deprived metropolis.

"Maybe they've just scratched the surface, those who want to cover over a mile-long section of the Hollywood Freeway and create a park on top.

"But a group promoting construction of an airy, meandering promenade for local Hollywood residents isn't certain what its effect might be on motorists down below traveling through a serpentine tunnel between Bronson Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard.

"A feasibility report years in the making concludes that the freeway-top park would cost $950 million in today's dollars. Construction could begin as early as 2012.

"The freeway conversion, backed by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles redevelopment officials and local politicians, would turn the top of the freeway into a 44-acre 'locals-first community park.' It would serve what advocates say is one of the city's most parks-poor areas.

"'It will be built,' advocate Don Scott promised Hollywood residents as the 92-page report detailing its preliminary design concept was released Wednesday night.

"A parade of local lawmakers declared their support for what backers call 'Hollywood Freeway Central Park,' which would be funded with a combination of state, local, federal and private dollars. A group of about 80 meeting at a newly built Hollywood high school adjacent to the freeway greeted the plans warmly . . ."